Black and White Americans Come Together in Love and Poverty

In the "olden days" of this great nation—when we still had that pioneering spirit—young Americans, upon turning 14 or whatever, would immediately get married, have a bunch of kids, and settle into a life of poverty, scratching a living from the harsh and pitiless soil. Things change! Now we're all too fat to scratch anything from the soil. We scratch our poverty-level subsistence from Wal-Mart. And we're free to marry people of different races! But we're all still poor.

You can drop out of school now, because we've just taught you everything you need to know about American USA Living, 2011 Style. First the good news: marriages between black Americans and white Americans are on the rise. They've more than tripled since 1980, to a still devastatingly modest level! Cancel the reparations and impeach NObama, because the "race card" is over! "My friend is married to a [black/ white] guy, okay?" is the new "I don't see color!" Rainbow sex is the American dream!

Today, couples of all racial varieties are free to marry, have kids, and live in a state of hopeless and persistent poverty. A new study says that 37% of families under the age of 30 who have children are living in poverty. That number has grown by a full half in the past decade. Because, as dicey a proposition as getting a college degree can be, it's still much worse to not get a college degree, or to drop out of high school. Especially if you then have kids. Especially since the middle class is dead.